News, articles and information about Jewish art, architecture, and historic sites. This blog includes material to be posted on the website of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments (www.isjm.org).

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Poland: Warsaw’s Brodno Jewish cemetery returned to Jewish ownership

Jewish cemetery in Warsaw returned to community

Warsaw’s Brodno Jewish cemetery,
founded in the 18th century, has been returned to Jewish ownership. The
cemetery has been heavily vandalized over the years, despite some
attempts at restoration, notably in the 1980s by the Nissenbaum
Foundation. (See the report in Warsaw’s Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.)Haaretz reports that in
exchange, the community will yield rights to a plot of land no longer
accessible due to the residential buildings and roads built on it.

The
city will also pay the Jewish community 15 million zlotys as part of
the deal, part of which will be used to renovate the cemetery, which has
been targeted by vandals several times in recent years. [...]

Because
of the security problems, the municipality was interested in giving up
responsibility for the graveyard but the Jewish community hesitated to
absorb the cost and effort of maintaining it. When funding was offered,
however, it agreed to do so. [...]

Recent excavations around the cemetery

revealed
human bones where a road was slated to be paved. Poland’s chief rabbi,
Rabbi Michael Schudrich, objected to removing the remains and the issue
became the subject of intense negotiations. In the end, the municipality
submitted to the Jewish community and the road will be paved elsewhere.

No comments:

Search This Blog

Follow by Email

Welcome

This blog provides news and opinion articles about Jewish art, architecture and historic sites - especially those where something new is happening. Developed in connection with news gathering for the International Survey of Jewish Monuments website (www.isjm.org), this blog highlights some of the most interesting Jewish sites around the world, and the most pressing issues affecting them.

About Me

Samuel D. GruberI am a cultural heritage consultant involved in a wide variety of
documentation, research, preservation, planning, publication, exhibition
and education projects in America and abroad.
I was trained as a medievalist, architectural historian and
archaeologist, but for 25 years my special expertise has developed in
Jewish art, architecture and historic sites. My various blogs about Jewish Art and Monuments, Central New York and Public Art and Memory allow me to
clear my email and my desk, and to report on some of my travels, by
passing on to a broader public just some of the interesting and
compelling information from projects I am working on, or am following.
Feel free to contact me for more information on any of the topics
posted, or if you have a project of your own you would like to discuss.

My Lectures & Presentations

“The Stone Shall be a Witness: Strategies for the Preservation and Presentation of Destroyed Structures,” Presentation at International Conference “How to Commemorate the Great Synagogue of Vilna Site?,” Vilnius, Lithuania Sept 4-5, 2017.